14 February, 2011IMF German affiliate IG Metall reaches an agreement on a wage increase for Volkswagen workers, bolstering their participation in the fair share of profit.
GERMANY: On February 8, IMF German affiliate IG Metall reached an agreement on 3.2 per cent pay rise for workers of the largest European car maker Volkswagen. The agreement is valid for 16 months from February 2011 through May 2012.
The agreement covers 100,000 VW employees in Western Germany and sets a new post crisis benchmark for other unions fighting for improvement of their members' working and living conditions.
The initial demands from IG Metall were six per cent hike and a 12 - month contract. Last month VW offered only 2.9 percent increment in base salaries starting from June 1, plus a 300 Euro one-time payment for the period from February to May under a 23-month agreement.
In 2011 VW announced its plans of increase sales by five per cent after record 2010 deliveries of 7.14 million vehicles.
"VW tried to keep the underlying pay increase below three per cent at all costs," IG Metall's chief negotiator Hartmut Meine said at a press conference in Hanover, Germany. "But eventually they accepted the need to grant workers a share in VW's good economic development."
Last November VW announced of its plans to invest 51.6 billion Euros in the automotive business through 2015. The company aims to create 50,000 jobs globally by 2015, about 10 per cent of the new positions will appear in Germany, the second-biggest market for VW, after China.